So That ‘True Detective’ Finale

So last night was the end of True Detective’s first season/story/volume which wrapped up Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart’s (Woody Harrelson) case and takes them away from us because next season will be a completely separate story with all new characters that already sounds fucking awesome. And, yes, I’m still saying that after last night’s ending which has predictably left the Internet in a bit of a tizzy and for understandable reasons.

SPOILERS (Obviously.)

“Form And Void” was exactly what creator Nic Pizzalatto said it was going to be. A straight-forward ending with no twists (especially supernatural ones) that would keep to the show’s theme of charting Rust and Marty’s character development. Which was either executed awfully if you projected way too much subtext onto the show or perfectly if you’re the fart-sniffing wankerly type. I fall in the middle because I knew going in that my expectations were higher than they should’ve been, and there was no tempering that, but the show did manage to create some palpable tension when Rust went into “Carcosa” (Also, for anyone wondering what the hell place was, it’s an old Civil War fort.) and then… everything just sort of ended save for the thematically well-done shot (flat-)circling everything back to the tree where Dora Lange’s body was found. The killer was caught, but only in the sense that the lowest possible man on the totem pole was taken down because remember that whole child rape animal face cult who everyone assumed raped Marty’s daughter thanks to 800 clues? Still out there completely manipulating the local government and media. Although, in theory, Gilbough and Papania presumably will take them down and clean up after the white boys which we’ll never know because, again, this is the end of the line for this story. It’s apparently not important because what is important is crying. Specifically the tad too schmaltzy crying of two hard-ass detectives who’ve been the product of seven hours of command performances who are Riggs and Murtaugh now if Riggs and Murtaugh want to get a studio apartment together like Photo Boy won’t commit to for reasons I’ll never understand. Am I not pretty enough?! I’M FUCKING PRETTY. *knocks over bookshelf*

Speaking of Photo Boy, he was absolutely certain that my life ended the moment Rust became a born-again Christian at the end except he didn’t and thank not-God Nic Pizzolatto backed me up on Inside The Episode where he makes it clear that Rust’s new worldview is purely based on physics. So Photo Boy can suck on that while living in a domestic cage with his wife instead of this really great loft I found. (I will eat your soul.)

Anyway, go nuts with why you liked/hated/were indifferent to last night’s episode which was probably the weakest [in the opinion of a guy writing dick jokes for a living, so that means nothing] but without diminishing the awesomeness that came before it, and God knows I’ll be devouring the shit out of the commentary tracks because the craft here was just fucking phenomenal. On that note, here’s one last final theory that went up before the finale, and yet is still entirely plausible:

UPDATE: Lori Allison over on the Facebook page cranked all this nice little summation:

The name of the show is True Detective. The title of the damn show set the limitations right there. True Detective. Not Crazy Supernatural Ending. Not David and Goliath. True Detective. And the show kind of ended in a way that rang true. Not the part with the head butting and gutting, but the fact that two former local cops turned PIs did not take down an ultra wealthy, ultra powerful ring of child murderers. They do their part to their limitations. It makes a crap ton of sense. They got their guy, they fixed their mistake, they got a level of closure. The rest is for someone else to go after. Life is generally full of drama and build up but ultimately anti-climactic. Overall, I liked it. It was a character study and as a character study, it was superb. Also, for some reason junkies really do tend to pull through the craziest medical crap. It’s a strange fact of life.